


The International Student, the English Teacher, and the Police Box

by kiyamahikari



Category: Doctor Who, Free!
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, English language learning, Flashbacks, Gen, Homesickness, London, Osaka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyamahikari/pseuds/kiyamahikari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rei Ryugazaki had recently arrived in London and needed help with his English pronunciation and his homesickness. An unlikely encounter with a schoolteacher from Blackpool was just what he needed for both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Your English pronunciation is terrible."

It had been three days since Rei Ryugazaki arrived in London. The transition had not been easy for him, however. His English pronunciation had more than once led to some sort of misunderstanding. It took him five tries to get “sandwich” right in order to get his first meal after touching down on Heathrow - embarrassing to say the least. His ears turned redder and redder every time the young woman at the cash register asked “Pardon?” or “Come again?”.

His English was not completely terrible - no, it was quite the opposite. In preparation for leaving Iwatobi, Japan for University College London, he had reviewed everything he had learned in English classes from elementary school all the way through high school. He tried frequenting websites that had pronunciation guides available, but even then it was not enough. He needed a native English speaker to help him, and such a person could not be found in Iwatobi. 

Rei stood in front of the counter at the Starbucks inside the Brunswick, a shopping centre in the Bloomsbury area of London. He had been debating whether to get a pumpkin spice latte or an Earl Grey tea. _I guess the pumpkin spice has a lot of sugar in it; it’s something Nagisa_ (his best friend at Iwatobi High School) _would like, not me,_ he thought. He smiled at the thought of Nagisa clutching a pumpkin spice latte, savoring every bit of its sweetness.

“Good afternoon, what would you like today?” asked the bespectacled, ginger-haired man at the cash register, one hand on the variety of plastic and paper cups with the Starbucks logo emblazoned on them, and the other on the cash register interface. 

“Uh, I would like the Earl Grey tea, please,” was what Rei envisioned himself as saying, but the words did not come out right.

“I’m sorry, come again?” asked Cash Register Guy. 

Rei’s ears turned pink. 

“I, uh, I would like the Earl Grey tea, please,” he repeated. Instead of the “er” sound, he had said “ah” once again.

“I’m sorry?” Cash Register Guy really could not understand him.

“Excuse me.”

A petite brunette woman - she was almost a head shorter than Rei - in her late twenties or early thirties piped up. She was dressed like a schoolteacher, with a light grey marled sweater and a dark crimson skirt. 

“Maybe I can help you with that order.” She turned to Cash Register Guy and said, “He’d like an Earl Grey tea, please.” 

“Okay, what size?” 

Rei pushed up his red acetate-framed glasses by grabbing both sides of the frame with his thumb and middle finger. “Grand,” he replied.

“Uh, you mean grande, right?” 

“Of course,” he said. 

“What’s your name?” asked Cash Register Guy as he pulls out a white paper cup and starts marking off Rei’s order with a Sharpie. 

“Rei.” He paused. “As in, R-E-I, Rei.” He pronounced the R as “ah-ru”.

Cash Register Guy finished scribbling and placed the paper cup on the barista’s side of the counter.

“That would be- ”

“Oh, and the same for me, please. The name’s Clara.” the brunette woman cut Cash Register Guy off. She turned to Rei. “It’s on me.”

“Wait, I can perfectly pay for myself- ” he blurted. “Perfectly” became “par-fectly” on his rushed tongue.

“Your English pronunciation is terrible,” she said in a stern but not unkind tone, and then smiled. Her round brown eyes crinkled. “I can help you with that.” She paid for the drinks and thanked Cash Register Guy.

Raising an eyebrow, Rei decided to follow along with this strangely assertive woman. “Oh-kay. Are you from here?”

“No, I’m from Blackpool. But I live in Shoreditch, about half an hour from here.”

He realised that she had an accent he had never heard before. “Where’s that?”

“Oh, it’s in the northwest of England. People there have a different accent from the people in London,” Clara replied.

“You look like a schoolteacher.”

“A schoolteacher? I get that a lot. But I really am one.” She crossed her arms and smiled. 

“Earl Grey teas for Ray and Clara!” called out the barista. 

“Come on, now.” said Clara as she nodded her head towards the corner of the counter on which their drinks were just placed.

They took their drinks and sat at a table for two in a corner by the glass wall. Rei had added a couple of sugars to his, while Clara added one sugar and some cream to hers. She looked at him in the eye. His dark hair had a slight bluish tint, while his eyes had an impossibly subtle violet color to them. He was quite muscular, too, with an athletic physique and rather wide shoulders. He looked like he had stepped out of one of those sports anime series. 

“You look… Asian. But not really.” She paused and caught herself. “Sorry, that wasn’t very nice of me, wasn’t it? We’ve only just met!” 

“It’s okay,” said Rei. “I’m from Japan. My name is Rei Ryugazaki. Nice to meet you.” He bowed slightly over their table.

“Clara Oswald. Nice to meet you, Rei. What brings you to London?”

“I’m studying chemistry at UCL. Classes start in a couple of days.” He pronounced couple as a subtle “kah-pu-ru”.

Clara chuckled. “You must be a pretty clever guy to be able to be enrolled there.” 

“Of course! I graduated at the top of my class.” He cocked his head slightly. “You’re a schoolteacher, right? What do you teach?”

“English. I thought that was obvious.” She took a sip of her tea. 

“Ah, okay.” He smiled, but after a split second his expression turned serious. “I know we’ve just met, but… you’ve got to help me.” He adjusted his glasses in the same manner as before. Clara could see a glint in his violet eyes that reminded her of someone she knew. 

Rei paused for a second to sip his own drink. “Well, it’s been kind of embarrassing, not being able to pronounce things properly. A friend of mine’s been telling me that over and over again ever since we met. He’s lived in Australia before, so I thought he was a bit of an expert.” 

“How have you been doing it?” she asked, running a finger around the rim of her paper cup.

“I’ve been looking up pronunciation guides and used English-language dictionaries, but I wonder if it’s a consequence of starting to learn English in my fifth year of elementary school instead of earlier in my life, because I’ve read about some stories of bilingual children naturally affecting the accent of the country they live in when they speak English.” He pronounced his “L” and “R” sounds as if they were interchangeable, but he had tried to distinguish between them. 

She took another sip. “Yeah, I have heard things like that before. In any case, I’ll be glad to help you.” 

“Thanks for doing this with me,” Rei said formally, even though he was bursting with excitement on the inside. Clara was taken aback. 

“Wait, wait, wait” - he waves his hands around like a madman - “it’s just something people in Japan do. We say ‘ _yoroshiku onegaishimasu_ ’ whenever we’re being entrusted with or by someone to do something… it’s more complicated than that, but it’s how I would explain it,” he continued.

“I’ll try my best,” she replied, returning the courtesy. She looked at her watch, but then realised that it never shows the right time anyway. “What’s the time now?” she asked.

Rei glanced at his. “It’s half-past five.” There was a slight additional syllable in “half”.

“I need to go now, it’s getting dark and there’s a lot of homework for me to grade.” She picked up her black messenger handbag and slung it across from her right shoulder. 

“When could we start?” he inquired.

“Meet me here Saturday afternoon,” she replied. “Say, 3 o’clock? Bring a dictionary if you can,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

Rei pondered the prompt for a moment. “Sure.” 

He saw her off at Russell Square station, then headed back to his dorm room in Campbell House. _Are all people in London like that?_ he wondered. _I don’t think so. She sure is interesting, though._ Her feistiness reminded him of the friends he had back home. It had not yet been a week, but Rei sure missed seeing them already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the idea from a dream I had not too long ago and my own experiences as an international student in the United States, though they were different because people have commented on my surprisingly good English pronunciation and American accent. I do have to say that my English only reached the level it has because a) my mother is an English teacher even before I was born, b) I was exposed to the language since early in my childhood through stuff like Barney & Friends and the Teletubbies, and c) I entered spelling bees for four years as a secondary schooler, twice ending up in the top three at the national level (n.b. I grew up in Malaysia).
> 
> The title, while inspired by a certain book by C.S. Lewis, also contains a bit of a hidden gem: The Japanese word for "international student", 留学生 [ryuugakusei], sounds like 竜ヶ崎 怜 [Ryuugazaki Rei].


	2. “Do you know what time it is?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rei and Clara agreed to meet once again and they set about getting him to improve his pronunciation. He also reconnected with an old friend, but felt lonelier than ever.

Saturday came sooner than Rei thought, with fresher orientation activities and new classes keeping him busy. He had also become used to the eight-hour time difference with Japan, but realised that soon enough he would have to change the clocks again to account for the end of British Summer Time. 

He checked his watch again. 15:02. Clara was running a bit late. He ordered green tea from the counter and waited for her to come. His neon green backpack - the one he had used since high school - was loaded with a notebook, pens, his laptop (a birthday present from his parents), and an electronic dictionary, as requested. He ran a hand through his hair, prying loose strands away from his forehead.

Clara walked into the Starbucks and immediately discerned Rei’s bluish hair from the afternoon crowd. She joined him at his table after ordering a skinny cinnamon latte. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, a little breathless. “Traffic’s a bit lousy out there.”

“How did you get here?” 

“Oh, I have a motorbike that I use sometimes. Really useful when navigating London traffic.”

“I brought a dictionary like you told me to,” declared Rei, changing the subject.

“Great. Shall we start?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Tell me again about how you’ve been approaching your pronunciation problem.” 

“Well…” Rei launched into a lengthy monologue about how a friend of his had been commenting on his terrible pronunciation, and how he had been trying to improve his English in preparation since April. But he could not find a native English speaker to help with his pronunciation despite researching the theory behind it extensively. 

Clara listened carefully to how little the distinction between his “L” and “R” sounds was, the way he would add syllables here and there (especially with closed consonants), and the transformation of “er” sounds into “ah” sounds.

“There is a problem with your pronunciation, all right,” she remarked when he finally stopped for fear of asphyxiation.

Rei’s expression was that of resignation. He held his hands on top of the paper cup and propped his chin on one of them. 

“But it’s nothing we can’t fix,” she continued.

His expression brightened slightly. “How?”

“I’ve been thinking about a way you could learn to pronounce words better and be more confident about it. That’s why I told you to bring a dictionary.” 

Rei whipped out the electronic dictionary from his backpack. “I have this here, will that do?”

Clara examined the device and turned it on. “It’s all in Japanese. Take me to the English dictionary,” she asked as she handed it back to him.

He pressed some buttons, landed on the English dictionary main menu, and handed it back to Clara. She typed in “decadent” as that was the first word that came to her mind.

Hidden from Rei, the screen read:

> decadent \ˈde-kə-dənt; di-ˈkā-\ _adj._  
>  : having low morals and a great love of pleasure, money, fame, etc.  
>  : attractive to people of low morals who are only interested in pleasure

“Have you heard of the International Phonetic Alphabet?” she asked, not looking up from the screen.

“You mean the weird letters next to the words?” He never got around to find out what they were, even though he had seen them countless times. He gave himself an internal facepalm for not realising this sooner.

“Yup. I think we can start there. I’ll show you,” said Clara, bringing out her laptop and connecting to the Starbucks Wi-Fi network. She Googled “English IPA” and clicked on the first link that was not a reference to India Pale Ale.

“Here,” she gestured, showing Rei the Wikipedia page for “International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects”. The page was set to a subsection called “Charts”. He scrolled down and examined how different phonemes were expressed in the strange symbols, as well as the ways different dialects were expressed, from British Received Pronunciation to Singapore Standard English.

“This is pretty intricate,” he remarked. “If I can pronounce everything here, it’s just a matter of putting the sounds together, right?”

“Yes and no. From what I’ve read, the Japanese language has a smaller set of vowel and consonant phonemes relative to English, and the almost exclusive open consonant-vowel configuration also poses some problems.”

At this point Rei stared into Clara’s eyes with an expression of mixed perplexity and amusement. “You think I can’t handle them?”

“Your pronunciation won’t be a hundred percent perfect, but it might be good enough to stop this communication block you’re having.” Rei noticed for the first time that her “u” sounds were different from the ones coming from Londoners. “In any case, you don’t seem that awkward with me. You must be a quick learner.”

“I’ll do my best,” he declared. He brought out his own laptop, too, and navigated his Internet browser to the same page as Clara’s. 

“I wasn’t trained in teaching English as a second language,” she reminded him, “but if this helps, what the bloody hell. We’ll start with differentiating ‘b’ and ‘v’ sounds, okay?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He adjusted his glasses in that peculiar way as if telling her that he was ready.

“Repeat after me: ‘Ban’. ‘Van’.”

Rei repeated Clara’s words; they continued in this manner several times before moving on to the next, repeating the cycle again and again. The next two hours were only interspersed by drinks and a tea-time snack halfway through their session.

“What do you think of that approach?” she asked him while holding a piece of orange-and-lemon flavoured scone in her hand. She bit into it, chewing carefully. They were done with all the different English phonemes, so they were just watching the sky grow dark while finishing their food.

“That was certainly quite helpful. I’ve noticed a few things about how I’ve been pronouncing words, but it’ll take a bit of practice before I can really get it down,” he said, trying to enunciate each syllable as carefully as he could without going too slow.

“That’s great!” she blurted, almost making a mess of herself. “Sorry,” she added as she gathered the fallen crumbs back onto the plate that once held her scone.

“I mean, I don’t have any intention of trying to sound like a native speaker, but you’ve done a really good job of showing me the different sounds. Thanks, Clara.”

“I’m glad that you’ve improved. At this rate, I think we’re done with phonemes and sounds. You’re very welcome, Rei.”

They sat together in silence, finishing what’s left of their meal. It was not long before Rei broke it, however.

“I’d still like to practice with you, though. We could maybe practice conversations with each other, you know, so that I can stop messing up every time I make an order or something.” _So that Rin wouldn’t make fun of my pronunciation again_ , he added in his head. Just thinking about it gave him another pang of loneliness, but he forced himself to be immersed in the present.

Clara mulled over the thought of meeting this surprisingly upfront and determined Japanese kid one more time. _I could always ask that person to help me with getting more time, but I don’t think he’d approve of the idea. I have to make it work somehow…_

“I’ve been kept busy with preparing the Year 11 students for their GCSEs and some errands I need to run, but I’ll try to make time for it. Same time next Sunday?”

“That wouldn’t work… I was thinking if I could try out for the UCL’s swim club that afternoon. I was a pretty good swimmer in high school, so I thought I’d get back into it,” he added by way of explanation. 

“Friday then, after classes.”

“Okay, how does 4 o’clock sound?”

“Perfect.” Clara scribbled something on a napkin and handed it to Rei. “This is my mobile number. Tell me if you need to change your plans.”

He received it with both hands (as it was customary to do so in Japan). “Thanks. I’ll see you then.” 

“Bye,” she waved as she picked up her things and headed to the parking lot where she had parked her motorbike.

Rei, too, left the Starbucks for his dormitory as the sky grew ever darker and the temperature became ever cooler. Once inside he set up his laptop for a Skype call with his friend, Rin Matsuoka. Rin was the captain of the Samezuka Academy swimming team, a rival of Iwatobi, before going to Australia to train as a professional swimmer. He was the one who taught Rei to master all four swimming strokes, and often chided him for his “horrible” English pronunciation.

Rei’s video call got through on the second try. A well-built young man with reddish hair and matching eyes appeared on the computer screen.

“Rin.” He had dropped the “-san” honorific not long after he had graduated from Iwatobi High. 

“Rei, do you know what time it is?” the redhead complained through the screen in his native Japanese. His voice sounded all distorted and crackly despite high-speed Internet connection from both ends of the call. 

It dawned on Rei that there was a nine-hour time difference between them; for Rin, it was already five on a Sunday morning. Not that it mattered to him, however, he always went on runs this early in summer. 

“No, I don’t. Sorry about that,” he replied in English, adjusting his glasses.

“Wha- ” Rin’s eyes widened. _How did he get his English to sound like that?_ “How did you do that?” he asked out loud in surprise.

Rei smiled smugly. “I found a native speaker who agreed to help me,” he explained, also reverting to Japanese. “No thanks to you.”

“Well, at least you’re confident about speaking in English now.”

“Why did you tell me that my pronunciation was horrible?”

“For one thing, it was. I also wanted you to get through it on your own, just like I did. Anyway, teaching others English really isn’t my forte, even though it was one of my best subjects in school.” He ran a hand through his hair.

It was true. Rin had spent four years in Australia as a teenager, struggling both to communicate in a language hardly familiar to him at the time _and_ to compete against swimmers who were on a whole other level compared to him. He had struggled just as much as, if not more than, Rei at present. At least Rei was more prepared for his experience abroad, but he put it down to a difference in age when first touching down in a new world.

“But the fact that you overcame it in a really short time is kind of ridiculous. You really are a genius, Rei. If there ever was one as obsessed with aesthetic as you are, that is.”

“Thanks for that, I guess,” he mumbled. 

“Hey, do you mind cutting this short?” asked Rin as he picked up a pair of running shoes. “I need to go on my morning run.”

Rei felt a pang like a ball of lead sinking into his stomach. “Yeah, I’ll keep in touch.”

“See ya.” Rin ended the call.

Rei sighed. He needed to make sure that he could communicate as well as the next person, even though his pronunciation, while better than it was only two weeks ago, was never going to be perfect. He was glad that he found Clara, and that she was so willing to help him.

He was looking forward to Friday, to another meeting with one of the few people he could call friends in his strange new land - as much as he missed the one he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to add the RinRei moment at first, but when I was writing the final chapter I felt like I needed to give some more context to what happens then. Even though the text did not show it very well, it's clear that Rei missed being in Japan and seeing his friends, and the call with Rin got cut short (partly because he wasn't paying attention to time differences), too, giving him another feeling of loneliness... I think at this point in time you could guess what happens next?
> 
> The definition of decadent was lifted from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. I used the IPA a lot when I was preparing for the spelling bees I used to enter, so I thought it would only be fitting to let Rei (as the theory freak he is) use it as well.


	3. "This… is the TARDIS."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara was running late to meet Rei - again. She enlisted the help of a certain Time Lord to get her when she needed to be, but things did not go to plan.

Clara Oswald forgot about her meeting with Rei Ryugazaki at 16:00 on Friday.

“Oh my stars,” she exclaimed, looking at the clock across the room in the teachers’ office. It was already 16:45. Rei would have been waiting for her for over an hour if she left now. Or would he?

She rummaged in her black messenger handbag for her mobile phone and called the only person (well, Time Lord) who could help her with things like these.

The voice of a gruff middle-aged Scotsman answered the phone. “Clara, if you’re asking me to let you be somewhere you’re running late to again, forget it.” The Doctor - that was what the Time Lord called himself - had told her multiple times to get her time management sorted, but she still took advantage of his time-and-space-transcending TARDIS for one reason or another. The last time Clara had asked the Doctor to do a similar thing, it was for the same excuse: she was running late for a meeting.

“Doctor, I really tried to be on time, but I forgot that the meeting was at four o’clock instead of five,” she pleaded. “I’ll get you some coffee. My treat.”

The Doctor’s ears perked up at the sound of the word “coffee”. Ever since he had regenerated into his current incarnation, he had been more than partial to the smell and taste of the roasted, ground and brewed seeds from plants of the genus Coffea. He could not remember the last time Clara had offered him this, so he could not help but… 

“Okay, okay, I’ll accept. Where are you?”

“Coal Hill.” 

Clara heard clicks and whirrs from the other end of the line as the Doctor set the TARDIS to travel to her current space-time coordinates. She gathered her handbag (more than half of its contents were emptied when she searched for her mobile) and her ivory-coloured laptop case, which she stuffed inside her handbag. 

“I’ll be at the caretaker’s shed,” said the Doctor as Clara went out of the teachers’ office to get her motorbike.

“Clara!”

She was stopped by a man with curly brown hair in a light blue work shirt and a bow tie. He had a tweed jacket draped over his arm. She turned around and saw her colleague, Adrian Davies, walking after her in the hallway leading to the teachers’ office. 

“Would you be free tonight for dinner?” he asked. 

“Not tonight, Adrian,” she called out as she darted towards the parking lot. “I’m on the way to meet someone else right now.” _Actually, I was supposed to meet him an hour ago_ , she added in her head. 

It took some time for her to drag her motorbike from the parking lot to the caretaker’s shed discreetly. She did succeed, however, and was soon met by the TARDIS’ simple yet imposing blue doors. She pried the doors open by pushing her motorbike through the opening. 

The Doctor, whose outward appearance was that of a silver-haired man in his late fifties with ferociously thick eyebrows and a magician-like outfit of a navy blue Crombie coat with a scarlet lining, black dress trousers, and matching brogue boots, was unperturbed by Clara’s entrance. 

“Mind you, don’t put your bike in the console area,” he reminded her. The last time she did that, the bike had tipped over and almost damaged one of the many panels controlling the TARDIS. His eyes were still focused on the book he was reading: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, in its original Japanese. 

Clara parked her motorbike on the lower level of the main console room, securing it to one of the supporting struts with a standard lock. “I’ll need to be at the Starbucks in the Brunswick shopping centre at 4 o’clock today,” she called out.

The Doctor leapt out of his seat, placed the doorstopper of a tome on it, and began resetting the coordinates as Clara climbed back on to the main level of the console area.

“Would you please remember to keep your appointments next time?” he asked half-jokingly as the TARDIS makes its usual whirring and wheezing noises. 

—

Rei had just arrived at the Brunswick when he heard a loud wheezing noise emanating from near the Russell Square Underground station entrance. He was sure that it did not belong to anything Tube-related, so his burning curiosity made him run in the direction of the noise.

It only took him seconds to find the source: a 1960’s police box in the bluest blue that Rei had ever seen. He had never seen such a thing before, and wondered whether it was placed there recently or if it was something that had been there for decades. The top of the box read “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” in white lettering over a black background; were such things not considered obsolete now that people carried mobile phones wherever they went? 

In any case, the police box looked almost brand new, as if it had been polished quite recently. There was a St John’s Ambulance sticker on the right-hand side of the doors underneath the windows. He read the panel covering the telephone on the doors’ left-hand side:

POLICE TELEPHONE BOX

FREE FOR USE OF PUBLIC

ADVICE & ASSISTANCE OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY

OFFICER & CARS RESPOND TO ALL CALLS

PULL TO OPEN

Rei reached out his hand to open the doors but stopped in his tracks when they were pulled inward. Clara’s brown eyes stared up at his violet ones.

 _Uh-oh_. “Rei! Fancy seeing you here. I was just headed out - come on!” she exclaimed as blithely as she could without showing her fear of him finding out her biggest secret.

He was dumbfounded by how the interior was so much bigger than the exterior, like some Undetectable Extension Charm (he remembered those from the Harry Potter books he read when he was younger) had been cast on it. He then slapped himself internally, convincing himself that such things like magic did not exist in this world. 

_But then how could something like this exist?_ said the little voice in his head, and for a moment he was convinced that such a thing may be true after all, something as beautiful as this strange blue box that seemed…

“Bigger on the inside,” he said out loud as though his voice had only just been returned to him. 

“Pardon?” asked Clara.

“This box. It’s bigger on the inside… or is it smaller on the outside?” Slowly but surely, the logical part of his mind lit up again. “It must be some kind of trans-dimensional portal, whatever this thing is.” He grabbed the door frame and ran his hand against the blue-painted wooden structures.

She grimaced as she felt the Doctor at her side, running up to the TARDIS doors after he noticed the presence of an unfamiliar young man. 

“Who are you?” inquired the Doctor in his rough Glaswegian accent.

Rei bowed as calmly as he could, realising that whoever this strange man in front of him is, he had an intimidating glare that told him that he could probably make him feel sorry that he, Rei Ryugazaki, had ever existed.

“Rei Ryugazaki, university student at UCL from Japan.” He had stuttered slightly despite telling himself that it would be okay. “Clara’s been helping me with my English.” 

The Doctor’s furious gaze turned into a perplexed one as he turned from Rei to Clara, but changed again into a neutral one when he looked into the former’s eyes.

“This is the man you’re supposed to meet?” he asked, pointing to Rei. “A bit young for you, don’t you think?”

“Doctor, there’s nothing romantic going on between us,” said Clara rather exasperatedly, crossing her arms. “Like he said, I’m helping him with his English.” She continued to stare at him, as if he had forgotten to do something that he was supposed to, though the Doctor had no idea what it was at the moment.

Rei, far from keeping track of the duo, continued to stare inside the machine and marvelled at its magnificence: the console area with its hexagonal control panel, the warmly lit roundels that surrounded the walls, giving it a cozy feeling, the multiple bookshelves and blackboards on the upper level, and the sense of adventure that seemed to permeate the entire vessel. He could feel that this blue box, whatever it is, was the marriage of both precision and beauty, two of the things he thought could hardly be reconciled even under the right conditions. 

Clara took a deep breath. “Rei.”

The young man came back to his senses, his eyes locked on to hers. 

“This… is the TARDIS. It’s a machine that lets you travel anywhere in time and space - with its set of limitations, of course. And this - ” she gestured, pointing to the silver-haired and strangely dressed man ( _is he even human?_ wondered Rei) “ - is the Doctor.”

The Doctor, finally taking Clara’s social cue, backed away to invite Rei inside his TARDIS. 

“I’m a Time Lord,” he proclaimed, somewhat arrogantly. “One of the last of my kind. Our race, from the planet Gallifrey, are a people who have the ability to control where we are in space and time. Mostly we don’t interfere, but I have a habit of hopping here and there to stir things up. You seem trustworthy; why don’t you come on in?”

Rei took somewhat hesitant steps, stood inside the console room and took the whole thing in. The TARDIS was even more spectacular on the inside. He noticed the book in a seat next to the control panels. “Do you know Japanese?”

“I can even speak dinosaur,” the Doctor replied, not jokingly. 

“And you said you could take me anywhere in time and space?” asked Rei in his native language. There was something that he needed to see.

“Of course.” The Time Lord also spoke in Japanese. “Where or when do you want to go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> July 17, 2015 - Eid al-Fitr Mubarak to all my Muslim readers! 
> 
> I just *had* to have Rei meet the Doctor; it wouldn't be a Doctor Who crossover without it, right? 
> 
> The Doctor was reading 1Q84 - one of my favorite books of all time and a reference to this crossover being set in some parallel universe.


	4. "Take me to Osaka."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rei asks the Doctor to take him back to see the sight from that time.

“Where or when do you want to go?” asked the Doctor in Rei’s native Japanese.

Rei thought about it for a moment. He was curious about how his own future would look like - whether he would succeed in his ambition to become a renowned scientist. But the rational side of him argued that even if he had witnessed his future, it could still change because multiple parallel universes (he believed in such a theory) could arise from whatever decision he took in the future, and the future he would have seen could be vastly different from the one he would experience.

 _What about the past, then?_ he asked himself. _Ah. The sight from that time._ He dearly wanted to see his friends again; adjusting to a new environment had not been easy on him.

In addition to his recently solved struggle with the English language, the culture in London had not been one that agreed with him. He often felt homesick, missing one thing after another, like melon bread with barley tea (a Ryugazaki family tradition) or the cooler Japanese autumn compared to the mild English one.

But most of all, he missed his friends - not just Rin, with whom he talked about a week ago, but also his former Iwatobi teammates.

He pushed up his glasses with his thumb and middle finger on both sides of the frame. “Doctor,” he spoke slowly and deliberately with his improved English. “Take me to the Namihaya Dome in Osaka, at Japan’s national inter-school swimming tournament about two years ago. There’s something I want to see once again.”

As the Doctor set the TARDIS to travel to the space-time coordinates of the tournament, Rei could not help feeling apprehensive. It was his first time in a time machine, after all. 

Clara seemed to pick up on this. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I got a bit nervous my first time, too.”

“Where did you go on your first time?”

“I asked for ‘something awesome’, so the Doctor took me to a planet called Akhaten. We visited during the Festival of Offerings, where the Queen of Years would sing the Long Song to feed a really hungry parasite of a god.”

“What did the parasite feed on?”

“Memories.”

The thought seemed illogical to Rei at first. _Memories as offerings?_ But when he thought about it, he could understand how some memories could be important to some people; important enough to use as a sacrifice for a divine entity.

“You were a swimmer in high school, right?” asked Clara, changing the subject. The TARDIS continued to whirr and wheeze towards its destination, and she wanted to pass the time by making some conversation. It _was_ what she meant to meet Rei for, after all.

“Well, I wasn’t even a swimmer until then. I used to be in track and field but Nagisa dragged me into the swim club. Quite literally,” he explained. 

“Tell me more about your friends.”

“There’s Nagisa - he was in the same year as I am, but a tad more immature, I might say. He’s quite a big eater, too. 

“And then there’s Makoto - he was a year older, and the captain before me. He’s super kind hearted and takes everyone’s best interests into account. 

“And then… Haru and Rin. They were rivals in competition and seemed like opposites at first sight, but they have more in common than one would think. Haru - his proper name is Haruka, but everyone just calls him Haru - was on our team, and is a brilliantly talented swimmer. He could only do the freestyle, though. Rin went to a different school, but he was friends with the other three when they were younger. He’s very hardworking and quite the technician, too, when it comes to being in the water.”

“Do you know where they are now?” 

“Hmm… Makoto went to study sports science in Tokyo. He wanted to become a swimming coach. Nagisa’s gone to university as well, but he’s more focused on his YouTube channel than his studies. Rin and Haru are professional swimmers now - Haru trains in Tokyo and Rin in Sydney.” He felt a pang of loneliness deep in his heart, but smiled at Clara as if nothing had happened.

The TARDIS’ wheezing noises stopped just as Clara meant to ask Rei another question. 

“We’re here,” declared the Doctor. “I suppose. The TARDIS is prone to messing up sometimes.”

“You should have let him use the telepathic circuits,” jabbed Clara.

“After what happened with you the first time you used it?” The Doctor called back to when Clara’s concentration was broken while navigating using the telepathic circuits, leading them to her then-boyfriend Danny’s childhood instead of hers. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but what _are_ the ‘telepathic circuits’?” asked Rei.

“They’re the part of the TARDIS that you could use to link your memories to in order to navigate it,” explained the Time Lord, gesturing towards a panel on the console that looked not unlike a set of square honeycombs or the interior of a termite mound. “But it looks like we didn’t need to use them this time.” He examined the external display and sure enough, the egg-like exterior of the Namihaya Dome loomed before them. 

Rei felt a certain sense of déjà vu as he glanced at the display. He was not yet sure why he wanted to see it again, nor why the request came so quickly to his mind when the Doctor asked him. 

“Let’s get in there,” he said, almost entirely to himself. He made for the door when Clara stopped him.

“Wait,” she said. “You’re a time-traveller now. You can’t let your past self or your friends see you as you are.” 

“I’ll just be discreet about it.” He held on to the TARDIS doors. 

“There’s a wardrobe if you need anything to go incognito,” the Doctor called out. “Clara.”

She led Rei to an expansive wardrobe deep inside the TARDIS. The room felt more like something out of a spy movie than a science fiction one, but it was a wardrobe all the same. 

He changed out of his grey sweater into a dark turquoise graphic T-shirt (with what looked like song titles from a certain album) more fitting for summer. Deciding that his black skinny jeans should stay, he swapped out his red-framed glasses for a more subtle midnight blue-framed one. He was surprised that the new glasses matched his prescription exactly. He also found a matching Captain America-themed baseball cap (he usually hated wearing hats of any kind, but found it a necessity to cover his rather distinctive hair) and put it on. 

“How do I look?” he asked Clara while twirling on the spot. 

“I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you on the street,” she answered half-jokingly.

“Do you want to come with me?”

“Yeah… why not?” _That’s the best thing about time travel. You get to see wonderful things and still be on time for dinner_ , she mused. And even though she did not show it, she, too, was curious about Rei’s friends.

—

Rei and Clara stepped out of the TARDIS, leaving the Doctor behind with his book. They entered the Namihaya Dome without any problems, as Clara had had the idea to borrow the Doctor’s psychic paper to act as a ticket for the both of them. 

People were filing in and out of the arena; some in matching school tracksuits and others in casual summer clothes or school uniforms. Rei was struck by the familiarity of it all - the kaleidoscope-like roof with triangular struts spread throughout, the clear Olympic-sized pool that he swum the relay in, the representatives of countless schools throughout Japan who came in droves to support their respective teams. 

He looked at the display board that showed the times of the top contestants whenever an event took place. It was 2:33 p.m., and the men’s 400m medley relay event would be starting soon.

“Looks like we’ll be seeing it soon,” he said matter-of-factly as they approached their seats. He had made sure that they would be sitting far away from and out of sight of anyone who might recognise him. 

A disembodied voice filled the arena. “We will now begin the men’s 400m medley relay, first heat,” it said in Japanese. The contestants walked seemingly calmly into the arena as it spoke.

“Is that you over there?” asked Clara as she pointed to a blue-haired figure in a pair of full-length black swim jammers with swooshing cobalt blue and white stripes. He was standing in front of lane 4 with three other swimmers, making final adjustments to his goggles and swim cap.

“Oh, yeah,” replied present Rei. It was quite a peculiar experience to see himself not from a reflection or a picture, but from the perspective of another person. He noticed that he had not changed much from back then; he had kept himself in good physical condition and found out that he grew a whole inch taller since high school, late last year.

He smiled as his gaze turned to his friends, the ones he had spent two to three years with but had not seen much since he went on his preparatory course in order to study in London. 

A series of whistles sounded as the backstroke contestants dived into the pool to get into position. In lane 4, a tall, broad-shouldered figure with olive green hair was getting ready to race his leg of the relay. He had the same kind of jammers that Rei-from-the-past wore, only with green stripes. “That’s Makoto,” Rei told Clara.

“Ready,” a male voice sounded, filling the arena. An electronic beep signaled the start of the event. “Go!”

The contestants leaped off the walls effortlessly. The Makoto of this moment in time gave his all, putting everything he had into an all-out stroke. It was as if he had become a different person from his usual kind-hearted self, like how a killer whale hunting its prey was different from how it would be when caring for its family. 

“Next would be Nagisa, swimming the breaststroke,” said Rei quietly, enough only for Clara to hear him.

A shorter blond boy in pink-striped jammers that reached his knees leapt out into the water as soon as Makoto touched the wall again. “Nagisa!” cried the latter. 

Nagisa’s arms seemed to extend in the water, but whether it was illusion or reality was hard to discern. His head bobbed up and down as he attacked the water, splicing it through with his hands in order to be let in. The Iwatobi team was in the lead; however, the team in second place was not far away. 

It was Rei-from-the-past’s turn as the butterfly swimmer on the team. As if connected to his past self’s consciousness, present Rei gasped when Nagisa called his name.

“Rei-chan!”

There it was again: _the sight from that time._

He was surrounded by a raft of penguins (Nagisa’s swimming was often likened to those of the aquatic birds) darting into unknown blue waters. He saw himself following the penguins - 

but the sight around him collapsed, leading to the reality he had the privilege to witness once again. Rei-from-the-past gasped for air as he hovered with his arms outstretched, only to return to the water again and again until he reached the end of his hundred metres. 

“That must be Haru,” said Clara, pointing to the dark-haired young man wearing knee-length swim jammers with purple stripes. “Or is his name Haruka?”

“Haruka-senpai!” yelled Rei-from-the-past as Haruka was accepted into the water. 

Present Rei recalled another moment from the depths of his memories, recovered from being in this same space as his past self. The night before the competition, Haruka had told them this:

“Swimming the relay together connected us. So even if we end up walking different paths, we’ll always be connected to each other.”

 _We had gone different ways since then_ , thought present Rei as he watched Haruka’s effortlessly beautiful freestyle stroke. _I’m in London, Rin’s in Sydney, and the rest are in Tokyo. I really miss them, too. But -_

“- I’ll always be connected to them, no matter what,” he muttered in Japanese.

“I’m sorry?” asked Clara, catching his words but not making any meaning out of it.

He smiled at her. “The reason I asked the Doctor for me to come here is that I wanted to see my friends again. We’ve all gone our separate ways since we graduated from high school… but no matter what, our swimming this relay connected us in a way that hardly anything else can.” 

Clara smiled back at him. “Shall we go home now?”

Rei rose from his seat and looked back at the just-concluded medley relay race. The Iwatobi High School team finished first in the first heat, qualifying for the finals. That was enough; he knew that they would end up sixth. All he needed was to see the sight he had witnessed once again, to know that he would never be truly alone. 

He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes.

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is - the fourth and final chapter. I tried to tie it in to canon as much as I can; hence the allusions to The Rings of Akhaten and Listen as well as Eternal Summer of Beginnings (the final episode of ES) being the second part of the chapter. 
> 
> I liked to think that Twelve brought back the TARDIS wardrobe, after being seemingly relegated to a chest below the console area in The Bells of St John. And YouTuber!Nagisa is one of my many Free! headcanons, so why not? Oh, and the T-shirt that present Rei wears in the second part is [this one](http://store.muse.mu/uk/clothing/mens/t-shirts/mens-song-block-text-t-shirt.html) from the Muse official store. 
> 
> A note on Japanese honorifics used in this chapter:  
> \- Nagisa calls Rei "Rei-chan"; -chan is used as a term of endearment usually to girls and young children. Nagisa basically adds this to everyone's names because he's cute like that.  
> \- Rei calls Haru "Haruka-senpai"; -senpai is used in order to honor those above you in your studies or profession. Rei was a second-year while Haruka was a third-year (n.b. high school education in Japan are three years long), and the rest is logic, plain and simple.
> 
> Thank you for reading this till the end - it took me a week to write the entire thing and I'm really proud of it as it's the longest piece of creative writing I've done since high school. Please give me feedback via kudos or comment, it'll be greatly appreciated.


End file.
